[UM3] Warping In First 50 Layers With Recommended Settings

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I recently purchased the UM3 intending to use it to help make costume props. Unfortunately I keep running into issues where the first 50 layers or so are warping with recommended and non-default settings on High Quality mode with Ultimaker Silver Metallic PLA. Either the model I am attempting to print is too ambitious or something is wrong with how I am trying to print. Has anyone else had issues with warping on the first 50 layers and if so, what was the solution?

Here is a gallery of images with what I've been trying to print alongside examples of the warping: http://imgur.com/a/JSJG7

The custom settings are:

- Infill density 35% (from 20%)

- Initial layer travel speed 15mm/s (from 20mm/s)

- Wall thickness 1.5mm (from 1.0mm)

- Brim width 15mm with a line count of 43 (from 7mm and line count of 20)

- Brim only on outside is false (used to be true)

Other info:

- The print is occuring in temperatures of 10 celsius to 20 celsius.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Guest

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I tend to believe warping is mainly an adhesion problem, and to lesser degree a settings issue. I've compared bed adhesion methods (here) and went for the best solution, all prints came out fine since (read for about a week since my test). For both ABS and PLA.

What do you use for adhesion? Bare Glass?

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I tend to believe warping is mainly an adhesion problem, and to lesser degree a settings issue. I've compared bed adhesion methods (here) and went for the best solution, all prints came out fine since (read for about a week since my test). For both ABS and PLA.

What do you use for adhesion? Bare Glass?

Thank you for your reply, your post was pretty informative. So far I've been using bare glass. I'm doing another print now where I've lowered the build plate to 55 degrees, put glue all over it. I also have the fan go to 100% on layer 2, and have a top/bottom thickness of 2mm in addition to the settings stated above. Here's where it's at now: http://imgur.com/a/q44Za

I really like your comparison but I'm not sure where I'd get 3D Lac here in America. Seems that regular old hair spray like got2be might work well too?

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What you said mhotze got me thinking, and upon examining the underside you can see a correlation between where the warping occurs and where it has lifted off the plate: https://imgur.com/gallery/9uB24 so adhesion definitely seems to be an issue.

I think you are correct in that the slight lift off the build plate is causing it to warp because it doesn't happen everywhere and it does eventually correct itself. Now the question is: How to fix this.

My current print run is suffering from the same thing, I suspect lowering the build plate temperature may not have helped with lift issues.

Do you have any ideas?

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There are a great many ways to increase adhesion. Hair spray or glue might be worth a shot. Then you have your dedicated 3D printing products like 3DLac, DimaFix, etc. You can also use something like BuildTak as an alternative surface to print on (and you might even get frustrated with how well it works since now you're having problems removing the models).

Lifting can be quite common especially if you're printing something with sharp corners on the build plate; that's almost always where it starts. Models with rounded corners are much easier to get away with.

Personally, I usually print with DimaFix. I start out with the bed heated close to the glass temperature of the material, let it run a couple of layers like that, then lower the bed temperature 5 degrees. Warping/lifting is a rare thing now in my world.

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Thank you, since it's the easiest for me to get in the US, I'm going to try BuildTac next and a hotter print bed in the first few layers. I am also going to go back to the recommended Ultimaker settings for everything else except initial layer speed and the brim since I need it on the inside of the model.

If I still get lift problems I'm going to add some thicker "disks" at the corners that I can cut off. Apparently that has helped others.

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For anyone who finds this thread in the future: The solution ended up being using hairspray/BuildTak to give super adhesion and then turning down the heated print bed from 60 celsius to 35 celsius after the first two layers.

It seems that between layers 3 to 50, having the heated print bed at 60 celsius causes warping issues with PLA on certain kinds of models.

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It seems that between layers 3 to 50, having the heated print bed at 60 celsius causes warping issues with PLA on certain kinds of models.

As long as the bed is kept close to the glass temperature of the filament in question, there's always going to be an increased risk of warping (for obvious reasons). Getting the lower layers to stiffen up always helps prevent the next layers from pulling them off the bed.

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